There are three primary color transmission standards in use today. The 525-line, 30-frame-per-second NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) standard is used in the United States, Canada, Central America, most of South America, and Japan. The 625-line, 25-frames-per-second PAL (Phase Alternation Each Line) standard is used in England, most countries and possessions influenced by the British Commonwealth, many western European countries and China. Finally, the 625-line, 25-frames-per-second SECAM (Sequential Color With [Avec] Memory) standard is used in France, countries and possessions influenced by France, the former Soviet Bloc nations including East Germany, and other areas influenced by them. Other standards are becoming available, such as HDTV (High Definition Television). The video signal according to each standard is unique, and an ordinary television receiver designed to process a video signal of one type cannot process a video signal of another.
If a software publisher wants to make a program such as a motion picture available in more than one aspect ratio, the publisher typically prepares a different program version for each. This further increases the number of versions which may have to be produced. Each version of a motion picture must be identified not only by a video standard, but now also by an aspect ratio. Thus there are available on the market, for example, NTSC 4:3 "letter box," NTSC 4:3 "pan scan," "Hi-Vision" 16:9 wide screen HDTV, etc. versions of the same motion picture. Since prepackaged media such as laserdiscs, VHS tapes, CD-ROMs, etc. are limited in terms of how much total material can be stored, it is not feasible to provide more than one aspect ratio version of a program on a given storage medium. That is why when different aspect ratio versions of motion picture releases are made available, they are made available on different dedicated media.
Digitally encoded optical disks are in theory far superior for the distribution of motion pictures and other forms of presentation. Especially advantageous is the use of "compressed video," by which it is possible to digitally encode a motion picture on a disk no larger than the present-day audio CD. Unfortunately, while much effort has been expended in developing compressed video systems, relatively little attention has been paid to aspect ratio considerations. A motion picture may be efficiently represented on an optical disk, for example, but the intent is for the motion picture to play in only the aspect ratio recorded on the disk. Depending on the particular television receiver and disk player that a consumer has, it is generally necessary to purchase a disk whose program material is recorded in the particular aspect ratio. This, in turn, means that the software publisher must make available multiple version disks each having a motion picture recorded in a respective aspect ratio.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a system and method for a software publisher to record on a software carrier, such as an optical disk, a motion picture in a single aspect ratio, but to play that disk on a player which can generate a video signal in a selected one of multiple aspect ratios.